G N L|M 



ti m 



*s 



r iGN 447 
.T9 M2 
Copy 1 



Wf 



^rrom the American Anthropologist (n. s.), Vol. 2, October-December, 1900) 



TRAPS OF THE AMERINDS— A STUDY IN PSYCHOL- 
OGY AND INVENTION 

By OTIS T. MASON 

That unicorns may be betrayed with trees, 
And bears with glasses, elephants with holes, 
Lions with toils and men with flatteries, . . . 

Let me work ; 
For I can give his humor the true bent, 
And I will bring him to the Capitol. 

Julius Ccesar, II, I. 

MEANING OF THE TERM AMERIND 
America, in this connection, embraces all of the Western 
Hemisphere visited by the native tribes in their activities associ- 
ated with the animal kingdom. It might be allowed to exclude 
a small number of frozen or elevated or desert regions untrodden 
by human feet, were it not for the fact that most of these were 
the favorite resorts of zoomorphic gods and all creatures of the 
aboriginal imagination. Most certainly the name America must 
in this study include those oceanic meadows or feeding grounds, 
stretching out from the continents often more than a hundred 
miles, whereon were born and nourished innumerable creatures, 
vertebrate and invertebrate, which dominated the activities of the 
littoral tribes, penetrating far inland, and carrying back in the 
shape of live animals, including fish, birds, and mammals, the by- 
products of terrestrial activities. 

Amerind, or Amerindian, is merely an abbreviation of the 
phrase " American Indian ", which has fastened itself on our 
literature despite the errors which it involves. 

• DEFINITION OF THE TERM TRAP 
A trap is an invention for the purpose of inducing animals to 
commit incarceration, self-arrest, or suicide. In the simplest 

AM. ANTH. N. S., 2 — 42 

657 







658 AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST [n. s., 2, 1900 

traps the automatism is solely on the part of the animal, but in 
the highest forms automatic action of the most delicate sort is 
seen in the traps themselves, involving the harnessing of some 
natural force, current, weight, spring, and so on, to do man's 
work, 

The climax of invention in any direction is automatic action. 
The human hand comes first as efficient in human work, and its 
own movements are supplemented and intensified by devices, but 
gradually it withdraws itself, its activities being at last performed 
by apparatus which function in its absence. 

These assertions hold true in the devices for capturing animals, 
which in their simplest forms are merely taking them with the 
hand just as in gathering fruits. By a second step they are har- 
vested with devices — scoop-nets, dippers, seines, hooks that are 
substitutes for the crooked finger, reatas, dulls, bolas, and many 
more. A third step leads to active slaughter with clubs for bruis- 
ing, knives and axes for cutting and hacking, and with a thousand 
and one implements for piercing and retrieving. In these the 
hunters are present and active, making war on the animal. 

In the matter of automatism there is no great gulf between 
the trapper and the hunter. At both ends and in the middle of 
the trap's activity the man may be present, but not to the victim. 
Not waiting for the victim to go to its doom of its own will, the 
hunter, having set his trap, proceeds to entice and compel the 
game ; he has learned to imitate to perfection the noises of birds 
and beasts — it may be of those he is hunting, of others hunted by 
them or their enemies ; — he knows the smells that are agreeable 
and the dainty foods most liked ; on the contrary he also knows 
how to allay suspicions in one direction, to arouse them in an- 
other, — always with the trap in his mind. 

The action of the trap itself is also frequently assisted by the 
hunter out of sight. He releases the pent-up force of gravity, of 
elasticity. 

Finally, the result of the trap's action is to hand the victim 



LC Control Number 







tmp96 026228 



mason] TRAPS OF THE AMERINDS 659 

over to the hunter to carry away or to kill. Often the trap does 
the killing outright, and the result is raw material for the elabo- 
rative industries ; but in other cases the hunter must be near by 
to give the coup de grace : the instances are many where the vic- 
tim must be dispatched at once, or the trap will be destroyed and 
the result lost. 

THE TRAP AS AN INVENTION 

As intimated, the trap teaches the whole lesson of invention : 
At first it is something that the animal unwittingly treads on 
(Middle Low German, treppen, to tread ; tramp is a kindred word) 
in its tramps and walks or falls into durance ; at last it is a com- 
bination of movement and obstruction, of release and execution, 
which vies in delicacy with the most destructive weapons. Grav- 
ity and elasticity are harnessed by ingenious mechanical combina- 
tions. It is possible to trace the new and useful additions in each 
class, which in the Patent Office would be called inventions. To 
follow these in savagery and barbarism, before there were monop- 
olies and patents, is an interesting contribution to the history of 
empiricism. 

THE TERM PSYCHOLOGY 

In this paper the term psychology stands for all those mental 
processes that are caused and developed by trapping. There is 
the mental activity of the animal and that of the man ; the trap 
itself is an invention in which are embodied most careful studies 
in animal mentation and habits — the hunter must know for each 
species its food, its likes and dislikes, its weaknesses and foibles. 
A trap in this connection is an ambuscade, a deceit, a temptation, 
an irresistible allurement ; it is strategy. Inasmuch as each spe. 
cies has its own idiosyncrasies, and as the number of species was 
unlimited, the pedagogic influence of this class of inventions must 
have been exalting to a high degree for the primitive tribes. 

The variety of execution to be done by the trap, irrespective 
of the species of animals, was very great. It had to inclose or 



660 AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST [n. s., 2, igoo 

impound or encage, or to seize by the head, horns, limbs, gills ; to 
maim, wound, crush, slash, brain, impale, poison, and so on, as 
though it had reason — that is, the thought of the hunter had to 
be locked up in its parts ready to spring into efficiency at a touch. 
As population increased, wants became more varied and animals 
made themselves more scarce. They also became more intellec- 
tual and wary. If any reader of this may himself have been a 
trapper he will remember the scrupulous care with which he pro- 
ceeded at every point — to make the parts stable or unstable, to 
choose out of innumerable places one that to a careful weighing 
of a thousand indications seemed best, to set the trap in the fittest 
manner, and at last to cover his tracks so that the most wary 
creature would not have the slightest suspicion. 

The Amerind knew that the beaver makes for deep water 
when caught, so he fastened to the trap a heavy stone which held 
the creature under until it was drowned ; he knew also that the 
beaver would amputate its own leg when it found itself seized, so 
he must provide for that. The beaver's objection to the smell of 
anything human is also strong, so the most aromatic substances 
have to be mixed with castor to sink the weaker into the stronger 
scent. The savages making a cooperative onslaught upon a village 
of beaver anticipated their plunging into the stream by rows of 
stakes driven close together, and killed the beaver while trying 
to make their escape. To catch a fox it was necessary to win its 
confidence, and this the savage knew ; so he prepared a trap that 
was perfectly harmless, and let Reynard walk about over the 
ashes or fresh earth or chaff, picking up dainty bits, until all sus- 
picion was removed. Then was the time to conceal the trap ; 
but all vestiges of human hand or foot must be removed, and the 
apparatus must be cleaned and smoked most effectually. 

PARTS OF TRAPS 

The trap, like all other inventions, has classes of parts, namely, 
the working part, and the mechanical, manual, animal part. The 



mason] TRAPS OF THE AMERINDS 66 1 

victim finds itself in a pound, deadfall, cage, hole, box, toil, noose, 
or jaw, on a hook, gorge, pale, or knife, and so on. This danger- 
ous element, to repeat, may not need any accessories. The fish 
swims into a fyke, the animal walks into a pit or pound, the bird 
or climbing animal finds itself in a cage with racheted entrance to 
prevent egress ; that is all. 

In a higher stage of invention, where the forces of gravity and 
elasticity are invoked to do the incarceration, arrest, or execu- 
tion, there has to be found between the lure and the execution a 
host of devices, and these form an ascending series of complexi- 
ties. The simplest of these intermediary inventions is an unstable 
prop or support of some kind ; the slightest pull at a bait removes 
the ticklish thing, and weight or noose or other deadly part is set 
free. The trigger and the catch are more complicated and varied ; 
the secret of them all, however, is that an unstable catch is 
released by the animal in passing, in prying curiosity, or in rub- 
bing ; this is connected by means of sticks and strings to the last 
release, since the operation of releasing is in connection with the 
device in which the force is confined and by which the work is to 
be done. In the highest forms of weight-traps and spring-traps 
there are veritable machines, since they change the direction and 
the effect of motion. It is on these that most ingenuity has been 
expended, and in them is exhibited that wonderful threefold play 
of working force, work to be done, and processes of reaching the 
end. Variations in the materials utilized will play no mean part 
also in a continent covering all zones save the antarctic, all eleva- 
tions at which man can live, and all varieties of vegetal phe- 
nomena growing out of temperature and rainfall. To proceed 
with some order it will be necessary to divide the Western Hemi- 
sphere into convenient culture-areas ; the following will serve for 
a provisional list : 



662 



AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST 



[N. S., 2, igOO 



Amerind Culture-areas 



Areas 

1 Arctic 

2 Canadian 

3 Atlantic slope 

4 Mississippi valley 

5 Louisiana or Gulf 

6 Southeastern Alaska 

7 Columbian region 

8 Interior basin 

9 California region 

10 Pueblo region 

11 Middle American 

12 Cordilleran region 

13 Antillean region 

14 Upper Amazonian region 

15 Eastern Brazilian region 

16 Mato Grosso and southward 

17 Argentina-Patagonian region 

18 Fuegian region 



Peoples 
Eskimo 
Athapascan 
Algonquian-Iroquois 
Siouan 
Muskhogean 
Haida-Koluschan 
Salish-Chinookan 
Shoshonean 
Very mixed stocks 
Tanoan-Tewan and Sonoran 
Nahua-Mayan 
Chibcha-Kechuan 
Arawak-Caribbean 
Jivaro, Peba, Puno, etc. 
Tupi-Guarani, Tapuya 
Mixed people of Brazilian and 

Andean types 
Chaco, Pampean, and Patagonian 

stocks 
Aliculuf, Ona, and Yahgan 



The inquiry will not be raised here whether the traps not 
made of metal and found in the hands of the American savages 
are entirely aboriginal or whether there has been acculturation. 
A good knowledge of the traps as they exist or existed will go 
far toward settling the question of origin. 

CLASSIFICATION OF TRAPS 

Traps are variously classified according to the concept in the 
student's mind. If it be the natural element in which they work, 
there will be — 

Land traps for mammals, birds, reptiles, and invertebrates, 

Water traps for mammals, birds, reptiles, fishes, and inverte- 
brates, 

Air traps for birds and insects. 

With reference to their parts, either mechanical or efficient, 
there are a multitude of names which will appear in a separate 



mason] TRAPS OF THE AMERINDS 663 

vocabulary. In the setting they are man-set, self-set, ever-set, and 
victim-set. 

For the purposes of this paper traps may be divided into 
three groups, namely, (a) inclosing, (b) arresting, (c) killing. In 
each of these we may begin with the simpler forms — those with 
the least mechanism — and end with those that are more intricate. 

A. INCLOSING TRAPS 

(a) Pen — dam, pound, fyke. 

(b) Cage — coop, pocket, cone, fish-trap. 

(c) Pit— pitfalls. 

(d) Door — with trigger, fall-cage or fall-door. 

B. ARRESTING TRAPS 

(e) Mesh — gill, toils, ratchet. 

(/) Set-hook — set-line, gorge, trawl. 

(g) Noose— snare, springe, fall-snare, trawl-snare. 

(h) Clutch — bird-lime, mechanical jaws. 

C KILLING TRAPS 

(0 Weight— fall, deadfall. 

(k) Point — impaling, stomach, missile. 

(/) Edge — wolf-knife, braining-knife. 

A. Inclosing Traps 

Inclosing traps are those which imprison the victim, most of 
them without doing any further bodily harm, though there may 
be added to these some other devices which will injure or kill. 
There are four kinds of inclosing traps : (a) pen-traps, (b) cage- 
traps, (c) pit-traps, (d) door-traps. 

(a) Pen-traps. — These include pounds or corrals on land, and 
dams, fish-pens, and fykes in the water, the idea being simply to 
inclose. Traps of this sort have no tops and therefore are not 
useful for birds. In connection with other forms, small inclosures 
of this kind are used to surround the bait and to guide the victim 
in a certain direction. The pen or pound is like a farmyard — 
it is an inclosure in which animals are shut. How the animal 
gets in, how it is kept in, and what is done to it afterward will 



664 AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST [n. s., 2, 1900 

decide whether the pound is a trap or a corral, or whether it is a 
reservoir, an abattoir, or a domesticating device. The simplest 
form of pound is of brush or reeds and confines whatever enters, 
large or small ; but the perfected form, in whatever element it is 
erected, has interstices carefully adapted to retain certain species 
and to allow others to escape, or holds the adult individual in 
and lets the small and young out. The savage tribes understood 
this process well and, further, could make movable walls of reeds 
and long nets ; indeed, the great impounding nets are the last 
word in the series. There is a vast deal of natural history and 
learning in them : they are on land or in the water ; above 
water-level or submerged; in still water or in running water; 
facing the current or with the current ; mouth upward or mouth 
downward ; man-closed, self-closed, or victim-closed, — all the re- 
sult of good intellectual exercise. Add to the pound an en- 
trance, and there begins another set of inventions around the 
notion of shutting. A gateway or an entrance may be closed by 
nature or by device : the tide falls and leaves aquatic creatures 
imprisoned ; animals get under some obstacle and cannot sur- 
mount it — they corral themselves. A gateway may be guarded 
by sentinels also ; but gates may be intentionally shut, or a pound- 
shaped barrier be set up so that the return of those which pass in 
is impossible. Most pounds, whether in water or on land, have 
some natural or artificial lane for conducting the game to the 
gateway. On either side may be precipices, trees with ropes or 
wattles between wing-nets, or something of the kind along which 
animals pursue their natural course and are lured or driven to 
the pen. 

(b) Cage-traps. — In this class must be grouped all forms of 
coops and strong house-traps on land, and a great variety of 
cones, pockets, and fish-traps in the waters : all of these are 
designed for climbing, flying, or swimming creatures. The cage- 
or coop-trap, completely inclosed on every side, is a step in ad- 
vance of an open pen, whether on land or in the water. The 



mason] TRAPS OF THE AMERINDS 66$ 

majority of cage-traps have funnel-shaped entrances, into which 
the animal passes easily and unrestrained, but exit is prevented 
by means of a pointed strip of wood or other substance acting as 
a rachet ; or, in the case of nets, the small end of the funnel con- 
sists of a series of string gates, which the animal passes, and these 
close the mouth of the net so as to prevent escape. 

Among the Eskimo a unique contrivance for catching foxes 
was a net which was made to be set around a burrow. Stakes 
were driven into the snow to support the net, which was about 
five feet high ; in the corners were long pockets, opening wide 
into the net but gradually contracting until the fox could go no 
farther ; endeavoring to turn back, it became hopelessly entangled 
and died of fright and cold. 

(c) Pits. — The digging of pits was not common in America 
before the discovery, owing to the lack of metallic excavating 
tools. Pits partially dug out and partially built up were seen here 
and there as a blind for the hunter, who concealed himself therein. 
Boas, quoting Lyon, describes an Eskimo fox-trap in the snow 
into which the animal jumped and was unable to extricate itself ; 
it was like a small lime-kiln in form, having a hole near the top in 
which the bait was placed ; the foxes were obliged to advance 
over a piece of whalebone which bent beneath their weight and 
let them into the prison. 

The central Eskimo, according to the same authority, dig a 
wolf-trap in the snow and cover it with a slab of snow on which 
the bait is laid ; the wolf breaks through the roof, and as the bot- 
tom of the pit is too narrow to afford him jumping room, he is 
caught. 

The Cree in the Saskatchewan country place at the end of their 
deer-drives a log of wood, and on the inner side make an exca- 
vation sufficiently deep to prevent the animal from leaping back. 

Pitfalls are said to have been used by the Indians of Massa- 
chusetts. They are described as oval in shape, three rods long 
and fifteen feet deep. 



666 AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST [n. s -. 2 > 1900 

The Concow Indians of California are said to catch grasshop- 
pers for food by driving them into pits. The Achomawi, or Pit 
River Indians, dug deer pitfalls, ten or twelve feet deep, by means 
of sticks, and carried the earth away in baskets. In southern 
Brazil, also, wild beasts were caught in pits dug for that purpose 
and covered with leaves. 

(d) Door-traps. — The last form of inclosing trap to be men- 
tioned here is also the most mechanical ; it includes those in which 
a gate or door falls and incloses the whole of the animal, or in 
which a cage, one side of which is held up by an unstable prop, 
falls and incloses the victim. 

Among inventions of capture- in which the operator is present, 
the inclosing trap resembles the inclosing net or seine. 

Parry describes a small house-trap, made of ice and used by 
the Eskimo for foxes, at one end of which was a door made of 
the same material to slide up and down in a groove. This door 
was sustained by a line which passed over the roof and was 
caught inside on a hook of ice by means of a loose grommet to 
which the bait was fastened. The fox, pulling at the bait, 
released the door of ice and found itself in prison. 

Crantz describes a house-trap, used by the Greenlanders, in 
which a broad stone forms the movable door. I have seen a 
trap of similar mechanism, used by folk in eastern United States, 
in which a cage or basket is propped up with a loop of splint ; 
this, pulled inside by the animal tugging at the bait, brings down 
the cage upon the victim. Doubtless this form of imprisoning 
animals designed to be taken alive was quite well spread over the 
continent. 

B. Arresting Traps 

The arresting traps are designed to seize the victim by the 
neck or gills or feet, resulting in death but not killing it outright. 

(e) Mesh nets. — The mesh net is based on the fact that birds, 
beasts, and fishes, by the conformation of their bodies or by the 
set of the hair, feathers, or gills, may ratchet themselves ; that is, 



mason] TRAPS OF THE AMERINDS 66? 

they can move in one direction into the net, but cannot withdraw 
themselves. To this class belong " toils " for land animals, tram- 
mels and gill nets for aquatic animals. 

Among the archeologic treasures of our National Museum are 
many net-sinkers, which would lead us to the conclusion that net- 
ting is an old art among the aborigines. The great majority of 
meshing devices are for aquatic animals, but tribes on the coast 
of British Columbia suspend long nets between long poles in 
order to capture migratory geese and ducks. The Eskimo make 
nets of sinew, of rawhide, and of baleen ; these nets are set across 
the rivers in the open water, but more ingeniously under the ice 
by means of holes cut at such distances apart as to enable the 
fishermen to draw the net out and in by means of a very primitive 
tackle. In order to set the net, the line is put over the end of the 
pole and thrust under the ice and in the direction of the other 
hole, from which another pole with a hook on the end is run. 
The upper edge of the net has floats and the lower end sinkers. 

A device somewhat in the nature of this is doubtless used by 
the Eskimo of Point Barrow for catching seals : four holes are 
drilled through the ice about a breathing-hole ; from these a net 
is set under the breathing-hole, the lines being worked through 
the four corners of the space; the net is hung under the ice, and 
the seal coming to breathe is entangled therein. 

Gill nets are set for seal after the ice forms along the shore. 
Murdoch reports that smaller seals are captured also in meshing 
nets of rawhide set along the shore in shallow water ; he refers to 
many authorities on the same subject, but thinks that the mesh- 
ing nets in northern Alaska came from Siberia. 

The use of gill nets is universal throughout Alaska, whether it 
was an aboriginal invention or not. Elliott illustrates Eskimo 
women catching salmon in a gill net consisting of a pole and a tri- 
angular net attached. The pole rests on a stone at the water-line, 
while the net sinks in the water ; as soon as a fish strikes, the 
women lift the pole, extricate the fish, and reset the net. 



668 AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST [n. s., 2, iqoo 

Mesh-fishing is also quite common among the Athapascan 
tribes, both on the Yukon and on the Mackenzie. Charlevoix 
states that in St Francis river, Canada, the Indians made holes 
in the ice through which they let nets five or six fathoms long ; 
he also describes the taking of beaver by means of nets. 

(f) Set-hooks. — These may be employed on land or in the 
water for taking mammals, birds, or fishes. A toggle or gorge may 
be so baited or placed that a duck or a goose, by diving and swal- 
lowing it, may be held under the water and drowned. A single 
hook may be set for vermin, or baited and left in the water, espe- 
cially for large fish ; for the smaller fish, the trawl or trot-line hold- 
ing several hooks may be stretched across a body of water, and 
thus the game may be secured in the absence of the fisherman. 

In one sense, most hooks used in taking birds and fishes are 
traps. They are baited and cast into the water or placed in such 
position on land that the hunter is out of sight. A line is attached 
to hooks of this kind, one end of which may be held in the hands 
of the hunter or tied to a buoy or other signal device. 

Anything like a comprehensive treatment of this capture in- 
vention would far exceed the limits of this paper ; but it is inter- 
esting to note that fish-hooks are not found in many American 
areas — large regions are entirely devoid of them, and even in 
ancient mounds and works all such relics are wanting. No picture 
of a fish-hook is seen in any Mexican or Maya codex, and Von 
den Steinen notes the entire absence of fish-hooks from large 
places on the affluents of the Amazon. The simplest form of this 
class of devices was seen by Lumholtz among the Tarahumari in 
northern Mexico ; they catch blackbirds by tying corn on a snare 
of pita fiber hidden under the ground ; the bird swallows the kernel, 
which becomes toggled in its esophagus, and cannot eject it. 

Another simple form of hook used in catching fishes, reptiles, 
and birds is a spindle-shaped toggle with a string attached to the 
middle ; the animal swallows the gorge, as it is called, and is thus 
securely caught. 



mason] TRAPS OF THE AMERINDS 669 

In the order of complexity — a removal from the mere action 
of hand-hooks for capture — hook-traps may be divided into the 
following classes : 

The seed on a string. 

The gorge. 

Hook at the end of string; squid hook. 

Baited hooks. 

Compound hooks. 

Barbed hooks. 

Automatic hooks. 

(g) Noose. — This is a most interesting class of traps. A string 
or thong or rope, or a bit of whalebone and sinew, may have one 
end looped around itself so as to slip with perfect ease ; the other 
end will be fastened to some object. This noose may be so placed 
that the animal will run its head or its foot into it and be caught ; or 
it may be attached to a bent sapling or some form of springe which 
is held down by a device, to be liberated by the animal coming to 
seize the bait or lure. In order to prevent the animal from 
gnawing the snare, perforated sticks may be suspended just over 
the knot, thus making a very complicated device. The noose 
may be used in the air for birds on the wing, on the land in many 
ways, and sparingly in the water. 

Boas says that among the central Eskimo water-fowl of all 
descriptions are caught in abundance in whalebone nooses fastened 
to a long whalebone line or to a thong. The line is set along the 
edge of a lake, particularly near the nesting-places. At shallow 
points these lines are placed across the water to catch the diving 
and swimming birds. Hares, ermines, and lemmings are also 
taken in whalebone snares. E. W. Nelson describes a noose for 
catching Parry's marmot, which involves a form of release men- 
tioned also as used among the Iroquois. The victim enters the 
leadway as usual, and instead of pulling at the bait to release the 
spring, it gnaws in two a string which holds the snare down and 



670 AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST [n. s., 2, 1900 

which has something on it appetizing to the animal. In the 
Iroquois rabbit-trap the string is steeped in salt. 

The simplest nooses at Point Barrow are made of baleen and 
set around where fine gravel has been placed to attract the birds. 
Accounts are also given of nooses of whalebone set in water along 
the shores where ducks dive for their favorite plants, and which 
catch the birds by the neck. This reminds one of the use of the 
mesh net for the same purpose in California. From Nelson and 
other observers among the Eskimo, and from the examination of 
collections in the museums, it is learned that the methods and 
places of setting a noose are limited only by the habits of the 
different animals. 

In the Mackenzie river country, and wherever the Hudson 
Bay Company's people have prosecuted their work, the snare and 
the springe are very commonly employed. Even reindeer and 
moose are strangled by means of snares set in their way. 

Father Morice figures a great variety of applications of the 
noose. In a form called the hedge-snare an open gateway in the 
hedge is flanked by two stout posts, each of which has a notch 
near the top ; the noose is placed open so as to fill the space be- 
tween the posts; above the noose is fastened a stick just fitting 
across the gateway, the ends resting in the notches of the posts. 
The animal runs its head into the noose, releases the toggle, and 
the spring flies up. The insertion of the long stick or pole into 
the lines above the noose is very common in the northern Atha- 
pascan area. 

In Wood's New England Canaan, we have the quaintest 
description of a New England trap : 

The Salvages take these in trappes made of their naturall Hempe 
which they place in the earthe where they fell a tree for browse and 
when hee roundes the tree for the browse if hee tread on the trap he is 
horsed up by the legg by means of a pole that starts up and catcheth 
him. 1 



New England Prospect, Prince Society ; Boston, 18S3, p. 202. 



mason] TRAPS OF THE AMERINDS 67 1 

The Gentleman of Elvas 1 gives the following description of 
the trap among the Autiamgue tribes: 

With great springes which lifted up their feet from the ground ; and 
the snare was made with a strong string, whereunto was fastened a knot 
of a cane, which ran close about the neck of the conie, because they 
should not gnaw the string. 

Teit, in his account of the Thompson River tribe, 2 describes 
deer fences and springs used in catching large and small animals. 
Mrs Allison describes snares for catching deer and birds in the 
same region. This custom prevailed also in California among 
many tribes described by Frost and Powers. Zufii boys catch 
blackbirds with snares made of horsehair fastened to rope ; these 
snares are laid on the ground and seeds placed between ; when 
the birds alight they put their feet into the snare and are drawn 
up and captured. The older Zunis drive sunflower stalks into the 
ground and fasten a noose on the top ; when a hawk, watching 
for field-mice, alights on the stalks, its feet are ensnared ; being 
unable to rise, the hawk remains stupidly on its perch and allows 
itself to be captured. 

The Tarahumari of Chihuahua are very ingenious in trapping 
rats, gophers, and deer. The ancient inhabitants of Copan 
caught quetzal birds in snares, and having plucked their beautiful 
feathers, set them at liberty again. In southern Brazil birds were 
snared by the feet, by the neck, and by the body. The Fuegians 
also use baleen nooses, which are set hidden in the grass for the 
purpose of catching partridges and other birds. 

(h) Clutching devices are best exemplified by bird-lime, of 
which last there is not a specimen in the National Museum. The 
ordinary jaw trap of the hunters may be placed in this class; the 
common steel rat trap is a good example. It is possible that 
spring nets may have been used in certain parts of America before 

1 Hakluyt, Voyages, vol. Ill, p. 114. 

2 Memoirs of the American Museum of Natural History, Anthropology, vol. II, 
pp. 247-249, figs. 228, 229. 



67 2 AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST [n. s., 2, 1900 

the discovery, but the principle involved in the metallic clutching 
traps was not known. 

C. Killing Traps 

The principles involved in killing traps are those mentioned 
under " hunting," as crushing, piercing, and cutting, giving a 
blow, a stab, or a slash. 

(i) Weight-trap. — The simplest form of killing trap is the fall, 
or deadfall, in which a heavy weight drops suddenly upon the 
animal, destroying its life. The most interesting part of the 
deadfall, however, is not the crushing of the animal, which is a 
very gross and brutal operation, but the inventions for securing 
an unstable support of the weight and for releasing this support 
by means of the trigger or bait contrivance. There are few sepa- 
rate supplementary or accessory appliances to the deadfall, since 
the animal is slain outright. 

The fall-trap was found in several of the areas mentioned. 
Essentially, in its least complex form, it consists of five parts : a 
heavy weight to crush the animal, a fixed support (perhaps a stake 
in the ground), an unstable support on which the weight rests, a 
catch which prevents the weight from falling until the bait is 
nibbled or the string pulled, and, lastly, the trigger itself. The 
whole weight then comes tumbling upon the animal. The central 
Eskimo form of deadfall has a slab of ice as a crushing weight, 
and the same sort of device is found among the western Eskimo. 
FitzWilliam 1 describes minutely a simple form of deadfall. The 
Hudson Bay Company's native trappers have a great variety of 
this particular type. Strachan Jones says the Kutchin caught 
foxes, wolves, and wolverines in the deadfall. 

Maximilian figures a deadfall used for bears in Pennsylvania: 
the animal walks between two logs; above are two logs fastened 
firmly together; these are held up by a crossbar supported be- 
tween two sticks ; a lever attached to the logs passes over the 

1 The Northwest Passage by Land. 



mason] TRAPS OF THE AMERINDS 673 

crossbar and is held down at either end in a ratchet, where there 
is a bait. The bear crouches between the logs, pulls the trigger, 
and releases the lever, which flies up and lets the ring that sup- 
ports the fall slip off ; then comes the tragedy. 

Similar traps are noted in British Columbia and throughout 
the southwestern country, but I have no reference to a fall-trap 
in middle America or in South America. I am told by Dr Hough 
that the Hopi of Arizona have two very primitive forms of 
deadfall : one, for foxes, consists of a heavy stone slab worked 
between two upright slabs for wings ; one end of the prop rests 
above against the stone, the other end rests on a cobblestone 
beneath ; the least touch of the prop rocks the cobblestone 
and lets the weight down upon the fox. In this case the 
proverb of the rolling stone is reversed. In another form, used 
for taking birds, the box and the fall or stone slab are similar. 
The release consists of the following parts : first, the upright 
and the notched catch, precisely as in the figure-4 traps ; to the 
bottom of the notched catch a short string is tied, having at the 
other end a small wooden toggle which is held by a little rod 
resting against it and caught at its other extremity in the grains 
of the sandstone slab. This is, indeed, a ticklish support, and 
the least touch overcomes the friction between the trigger and 
the slab; this sets free the toggle, which unwinds from the 
post, the hook-catch flies up, and the weight falls. 

(k) Point-traps of the highest order were not common in 
America ; that is, the use of arbalist or bow for the purpose of 
driving an arrow or bolt into the victim or for impaling, or the 
use of sharpened sticks in the pathway of land animals ; but the 
throwing in the way of carnivorous animals of sharpened whale- 
bone splinters wrapped in fat was practiced. 

Bancroft mentions a bear trap, used by the Aleuts, consisting 
of a board two feet square and two inches thick, furnished with 
barbed spikes, which was placed in Bruin's path and covered with 
dust. The unsuspecting victim stepped upon the smooth surface, 

AM. ANTH. N. S., 2—43 



674 AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST [n. S., 2, 1900 

when his foot sank and was pierced by one of the barbed hooks. 
Maddened with pain, he put forth another foot to assist in pulling 
the first away, when that, too, was caught. When all four of the 
feet were spiked to the board, the beast fell over on its back and 
its career was soon ended by the hunter. 

The wolf-bait, made of a piece of whalebone sharpened at 
both ends and doubled up, has been mentioned by Boas, and ex- 
amples of the same device were brought to the National Museum 
by Nelson from St Michael, Alaska. 

Lumholtz says that the Tarahumari catch deer by putting 
sharpened sticks in the track and stampeding the animals with 
dogs. 

(1) Edge-traps. — There were in America two forms of knife or 
cutting traps of the most ingenious character. One may be called 
the wolf-knife. A sharpened blade was inclosed in a frozen mass 
of fat, and stuck up in a block of ice ; the wolf, licking the fat, 
cut its tongue ; the taste of the blood infuriated the animal, so 
that by licking the knife more it caused a larger flow of blood. 
All the other members of the pack were attracted to the same 
spot, devouring one another for the sake of the blood, till all 
were destroyed. 

Another form of edge-trap is found in Alaska, where the blades 
are attached to one end of a lever, the other end of which is in- 
closed in a torsion spring of rawhide. The animal stops to pick 
the bait, pulls the trigger, and releases the unstable hook-catch ; 
the knives fly over and the victim is brained. 

DISTRIBUTION OF TRAPS IN AMERICA 

To trace minutely each of the twelve types of traps throughout 
the eighteen culture areas of the Western Hemisphere would 
transcend the limits of this paper. Some of the types were con- 
fined to narrow limits, others were used quite universally. 

The occurrence or non-occurrence was first of all owing to 
the presence or the absence of certain animal forms; again, it 



mason] TRAPS OF THE AMERINDS &7$ 

depended on material for making traps. Deadfalls, for example, 
could not be employed where there were no trees or stones, but 
pitfalls might replace them. 

Much must be attributed to the ingenuity of one tribe or 
another, to their contacts and suggestions, and to the demands 
made on them. A rigorous climate was more stimulating than 
one that was enervating. The demands of trade, first native and 
then European, provoked the inventive faculty immensely in 
such areas, for instance, as the Hudson Bay territory. 

So the study of the distribution of traps is also a study of 
Amerindian intellect and of the primitive mind in its earliest 
struggles with problems in mechanics and engineering. 



mnSSf«S F CONGRESS 



019 953 790 8 



(v L H I 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



019 953 790 8 * 



